Hitchin Book Club

NOTE FOR NEW MEMBERS: We tend to sit at the tables near the TV, however we often sit in the garden if the football is on. If you can't see us, please wait at the bar, and we will come and show you where we are sitting. Please don't ask the bar staff where we are sitting, as they don't know who we are.

Hitchin Book Club invites you to join us for some light-hearted discussions. This event is a great introduction to the book club (especially if you have never been to a book club before). We always welcome new members regardless of their level of reading experience.

Book Name: The Employees
Book Author: Olga Ravn
Genre: Science Fiction
Published: 2018
Page Count: 136 (probably around 30k words)
Date: Wednesday 22nd July 2026
Start Time: 19:30
End Time: approx 21:30
Location: The Albert Inn, 50 Walsworth Rd, Hitchin SG4 9SU - We will be sitting at one of the tables (potentially outside esp. in the summer). Any updates to the location I will post in the comments on the day.

Structure:
- Brief introduction and what you thought about the book
- Discussions based on a set of pre-prepared questions as prompts
- 10 to 15 minute break half-way through, option to join whatsapp group
- Opportunity to ask any questions to the group
- Closing thoughts and provide a rating for book out of 10
- Vote for the next book
- Book club formally ends - feel free to leave or stick around for general conversations

About book (from Goodreads):
The crew of the Six-Thousand Ship consists of those who were born, and those who were made. Those who will die, and those who will not. When the ship takes on a number of strange objects from the planet New Discovery, the crew is perplexed to find itself becoming deeply attached to them, and human and humanoid employees alike start aching for the same things: warmth and intimacy. Loved ones who have passed. Shopping and child-rearing. Our sheared, far-away Earth, which now only persists in memory.

Gradually, the crew members come to see their work in a new light, and each employee is compelled to ask themselves whether their work can carry on as before – and what it means to be truly living.

Structured as a series of witness statements compiled by a workplace commission, Olga Ravn’s crackling prose is as chilling as it is moving, as exhilarating as it is foreboding. Wracked by all kinds of longing, The Employees probes into what it means to be human, emotionally and ontologically, while simultaneously delivering an overdue critique of a life governed by work and the logic of productivity.